to our girl, a bit late

greta your 10 month day has come and gone, and you are quickly approaching being 11 months old. my biggest mommy apology for this letter being late. it's amazing how quickly you are changing, growing, and learning new things....it seems like your 1o month self is quite a baby compared to the 10 and a 1/2 month old girl that you are today.
you have figured out that it is fun, sort of scary, and kind of daring to let go of things and stand all by yourself. i think it sort of sneaks up on you when you do it. one minute you are cruising along, then you stop to clap your hands or wave or something and BAM you are just standing there. as soon as you realize it, you grab quickly for whatever is closest or you plop down to the ground. but man on man, is walking right around the corner.
you love to move, you love love love to dance. you don't discriminate against any types of music, and will dance to anything from hip hop to rap to cheesy commercial themes to mommy singing. sometimes when we sing to you you "sing" along. but your dancing is awesome. you shake your booty like no other baby i've seen. girl, you've got rhythm. or something.
you have also started laughing this big hearty, santa claus like laugh. if mommy is carrying you and papa happens to be walking behind us, you start laughing and jumping up and down and panting....we think you think that he is chasing you. you often think people are chasing you if they happen to walk by you. you usually think this is hysterical and will either crawl right after them, or will laugh and quickly crawl the other way to continue being chased.
you love to read books and seem to like looking at them on your own. you always pick the same ones out of the pile/basket first (baby's colors, pat the bunny, zoo who?, playtime peekaboo). you also love when mommy makes animal noises to go along with the books. you point to things in the books like the ducky or the ball or the baby. you also love to look at pictures of yourself and of your relatives.
you are an all around easygoing girl. you sleep well, you eat well, you play well. sleeping goes well at night and you are still taking two naps during the day. you are eating three meals of food a day and nursing 4 times a day. you are working on feeding yourself with a spoon....you like to turn the spoon upside down in your mouth and whenever food drips onto the tray you like to wipe it off with your fingers. you enjoy feeding yourself finger foods like chicken, tofu cubes, and most any fruit or vegetable. sometimes you get annoyed when we try to spoon feed you ourselves, but distractions are fantastic for getting you to eat. sometimes mommy will take you for a walk at mealtime and park the stroller somewhere busy so you have lots to watch while you dine.
your favorite toy of late is probably the little push toy that lets you push it and walk behind it. you are hilarious with it....you remind me of a little old lady pushing a grocery cart. you will push it all the way across the room, and when you can't turn it around on your own you whine til i come over and face you the other way.
you are busy and will play and entertain yourself so well....although you definitely like to be in the same room as mommy. you are always right under my feet whenever i am making dinner. you seem to be most entertained with your strainer full of baby food lids and plastic water bottles. it's amazing what becomes a toy.
you have 5 teeth now and papa saw a 6th one coming through on top. although, i think this technically happened after august 12th so maybe that is information for next month's letter. you like to use these teeth to gnaw on your bedposts. it looks like you share a room with a little gerbil or something. and you talk nonstop. so much of what you are saying sounds like words. like i swear you said "duck" and "nana" (for banana) the other day. but it's so hard to tell. but you definitely like to talk.
you point at everything now, and when asked, "where's papa?" you will point to him. you can do this for mommy too. you have started to point to noses, eyes, bellies, and toes. you think it's funny to smack mommy's belly when we play this game.
whenever we are out and about, people refer to you as a redhead. your hair has really lightened up and is a beautiful shade of auburn. it's funny to think that if you had been born as a redhead, your name would have been a bit different. but you are our greta josephine, and we love you so much. you are full of energy and life and are just the funniest little thing. thank you for bringing so much joy into our lives.